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Stereomood Delivers "Emotional" Internet Radio

If Pandora stands as the reigning brain of internet radio, new competitor Stereomood may be its heart. A Rome based internet radio service, Stereomood sorts songs into playlists based on corresponding moods and activities. Where Pandora is omniscient and calculating, working to crack songs like codes or pretty algorithms, Stereomood is malleable and sensual, working with users to categorize music based on how it makes a listener feel. Navigation is quick and simple. Feeling blue? Turn to the “Feel Like Crying” station and kill the whole pint of Ben & Jerry’s to Townes Van Zandt and Sparklehorse. Feeling fat now? Tune to the “running” station and get moving over Arctic Monkeys and the Black Keys.

Billing itself as “emotional internet radio” Stereomood generates playlists based on the emotions a listener culls from music. Combining user tagging with machine learning, the system takes songs that have been posted on blogs across the web and organizes them into playlists based on states of mind and activities. The site’s simple, hip homepage is centered around a screenlength cluster of tags – moods in lowercase, activities in all caps. To get listening, users click on a word or phrase, leading to a playlist of music that corresponds to what you’re doing or how you’re feeling.

Tagging is refreshingly accurate and true. Elliot Smith is heavily featured in the aforementioned “Feel Like Crying” playlist, while the “nostalgic” mood tag’s most popular artist is, fittingly, rock’s saint of slipstream remembrance, Van Morrison. It is easy to get lost in the musical stacks of Stereomood’s vast library, scanning the various stations and playlists to see where your favorite artists reside, but once finally settling on a station, the music tends to match your state.

Unlike sites in which users build their own playlists, Stereomood was not built to be toyed with. Though there is a playlist creation feature, the site functions best when opened and left on its own, without the constant user prodding and manipulation that fuels sites like Playlist.com. Stereomood can serve as an all encompassing search and indexing engine for specific tracks or artists, but broad search results can be limited and underwhelming (only 56 Justin Bieber tracks ?!?) As most of Stereomood’s music comes from blogs (over 100 across the globe), playlists skew towards the indie and under the radar. Major label acts are represented, but sparingly. The site works best when turning listeners onto up-and-coming bands and lesser known international talent. When searching for a specific song, Stereomood’s extensive and unique collection of unexpected cover songs is a welcome surprise – try not being overjoyed at the half dozen different takes that turn up after searching for one of your favorite tracks.

As the “about us” section of the site explains, Stereomood is in Beta mode. Because of this, some key features present in more fully formed internet radio sites are noticeably absent. The skeletal app, free on iPhone and Android, comes off as a single-bladed Swiss Army knife, humbly outfitted with mere tags and skip buttons. While the stripped down app approach is trendy and easy to navigate, more features, like the ability to listen to custom playlists from the browser version while on the go, would be welcome.

Still, in a crowded internet radio field, even a Beta draft of Stereomood shines. By carnally and spiritually arranging songs, the site erodes all prior notions of genre, desegregating and humanizing music. Tracks from different eras and opposite hemispheres peacefully mingle, united by feeling and human activity – the purest and simplest of measures. Need music for “dinner with friends” or a “beach party”? Feeling “romantic,” “well read,” or “absolutely mad”? Stereomood aims to give you one less thing to worry about.

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Like “emotional design” on the web, Stereomood places content over navigation. Pandora, to me, is a reductive experience. I rarely like the associated artistis as much as the artists I select (nothing on “Gillian Welch radio” is as good as Gillian Welch). Steroemood promises more serendipity and less algorithm.

I can’t even access Pandora because I’m outside the US. For me Stereomood is more personal and more “human” as it interacts with people in a musical way besides it’s completely customizable. I have no complains on Stereomood so far, I’ve been using the site for more than a year.